Jerry Colonna: The CEO Whisperer

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/0901249e4411511f

Being able to be resilient.
Is
A wonderful adulting skill.
But what we're really after
is the equanimity that says
I may have made a mistake.
And with remorse.
I will learn.
From that mistake.
But my sense of self worth
is not at risk.
I will use the positive experience of that mistake to
to learn and grow and do a better job.
For the joy.
of doing a better job.
Not because I'm being chased by a demon that says
You're a piece of crap.
Welcome to the Knowledge Project, a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out so you can apply their insights to your life.
I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
If you're listening to this, you're missing it. If you'd like access to the podcast before public release, special episodes that don't appear anywhere else, hand edited transcripts.
Or you just want to support the show you love.
You can join at fs.blog slash membership.
Check out the show notes for a link.
My guest today is Jerry Colonna, founder of Reboot.
Dot Io
Kelowna is a certified professional coach, but before all of that, he played a prominent role in the early development of Silicon Valley.
With Fred Wilson, he launched Flatteron Partners in August of nineteen ninety six, which quickly rose to one of the top VC firms.
But like many of us, he reached all the goals he had set out for himself.
Only to find.
How hollow and unfulfilling.
It really was.
People call Jerry the CEO Whisperer, and you'll see why.
This conversation is personal for me.
You'll get to listen to two friends talking and solving problems, but it's a bit vulnerable too because you're also gonna get to listen to Jerry work through some of my issues in real time.
It's time.
To listen.
and learn.
Mm-hmm.
You were a great VC. You became rich. You accomplished all of your goals that you thought you wanted.
And yet
You wanted to kill yourself.
You felt hollow inside.
What happened?
Well, that's quite a way to s
to start the conversation. Um
I if you if you disconnect for a moment.
What
One does.
From how one is
And how one has been.
Um, and I wanna be clear'cause though there's a relationship between those two.
But if you disconnect it for a moment.
It becomes a little bit easier to see.
Through the myth.
that we all carry.
Which is that if I achieve a certain pinnacle of success.
Then it's
Milk and honey and sunshine and rainbows for the rest of my life.
Of course.
As soon as I say that, we know that that's not true.
For me
That moment
And and you're right, I describe it as feeling hollow inside.
A a a way to see it is that I walked around with a shell.
Uh that
uh was tailored
to other people's projections of who I should be.
And my skill set and my
intellect and my work ethic.
Still shown through.
But I wasn't necessarily doing the thing I was
Put on this earth.
to do.
And that led to this.
disconnect between the inner me and the outer me.
Which on a prolonged period of
But time leads to depression.
I think we all feel that to some extent. I really want to dive into two aspects of that.
The first is
You said you were playing by other people I'm gonna use the term scoreboard. You're playing by what other people expected of you.
You're playing by
These are the things that society or culture or
Friends and family tell me that I should want.
And I feel like we're we're all doing that to some extent. How do we
How do we get out of that? How do we recognize when we're doing that in the moment? Because it's all unconscious.
We're unconsciously doing this. And then we we it's like we reach the top of the ladder and we realise
We climbed the wrong ladder. Like I didn't want to play that game. But it's too late because by the time most of us realize that we're, you know, 70, 80,
uh ninety, it's near the end of our life.
How do we c how do we switch out of that zone so that we can recognize, am I doing this consciously because I want to do it, or am I doing it because other people want me to do it?
Okay, so the first thing I wanna say is that it's never too late.
And I think that that's a really important message.
You know, the Buddha had a teaching which

If if you sit down to meditate with the intention of meditating for twenty minutes
And spend nineteen minutes woe gathering?
But in the last minute wake up.
Congratulations, you had a wonderful meditation session.
So even at seventy or eighty.
It's not too late.
And that's a really important message because
part of the myth.
Is that it's always too late.
Oh, it's n I'm nineteen years old. It's too late.
I'm thirty years old, it's too late. I'm fifty years old, it's too late. It's not too late.
It's not too late to wake up.
To realize
for the pursuit of love, safety, and belonging.
We shape our shells ourselves.
We shape shift ourselves.
Kind of like a Marvel superhero.
To fit.
the expectations of others.
the forces at work.
Or
Incidious.
And relentless.
And ubiquitous.
One can make the argument
That the real purpose of life
boils down to discovering who you really are.
And living into
That.
And then
You inject a little bit of kindness.
Into that.
And then we have
A fulalized person.
I know that was a long winded answer. I just want to put a pin in the fact that you also asked, How do we get there?
And that's a different question.
But I did want to give enough space to
the folks who might listen to this and s and recognize just the way you did recognize
this uh propensity that we have.
I once had a client say to me, I was bred.
to make my family members.
Feel better.
I mean, what a powerful statement. Yes.
Yeah.
And and this is important to understand that this is part of a family legacy.
Uh if we grow up in an environment
Where we're
In order to say make our depressed father
Less depressed.
Yeah.
Anxious.
Less anxious.
By shape shifting.
the likelihood is that we will pass that pattern on to our descendants.
And so your your core question
Which is
How do we shift this? How do we change this?
is quite profound because what you're really talking about is breaking lineage.
Breaking ancestral patterns.
Well, I think we're gonna get into that a little bit.
uh throughout the episode. And I don't I don't know if diving into it right now is is sort of the right moment because
The the cost of pleasing others is giving up yourself.
Uh amen.
You know, at thirty eight, thirty nine.
It felt like
I had been
Hood winked.
Because I did.
the things that one is supposed to do.
According to those external forces.
And I still wasn't happy.
I felt hoodwinked, I felt tricked, I felt like
I've been sold a bill of goods.
And and to be clear, it wasn't
purposeful. It wasn't like, hey, let's screw with this guy's head.
It was uh a function of the
Uh the way that
Families operate.
uh the way societies operate.
that creates this
phenomena of
shape shifting our s uh the the person away from who they were born to be.
I think that's really powerful.
In terms of understanding where we
Start to go astray.
I think one of the other things that I wanted to dive into that you mentioned in the the open
Answer was
The relationship we have between work and identity.
Mm-hmm.
Why do we get caught up thinking that our job or our title is who we are and then when that gets taken away
where we're not as successful as we wanna be, somehow we feel less than we should feel. And I would imagine this is especially true for entrepreneurs and founders.
Um
where you're just expected to keep going and keep growing and push and struggle and endure.
And then when you when you leave and walk away.
for your whole life you've been I am the CEO of X, I am the founder of Y
And then all of a sudden you're you're left with
I'm just a person.
And there's a sense of loss.
You asked.
Why is it that we attach our sense of self?
to an externality.
once you begin to see that pattern
you can see the roots of it. It might happen in school.
And and it might happen even in our family system.
dynamic where uh I am the peacemaking youngest child.
I am the one who has been early parentified.
Uh or I am the student who gets A's.
Or I am the athlete. Right. And so
What happens is very early on we start to attach
um our sense of self to that.
And in a and in a way
Oh.
All of
The struggle is a struggle to
Free that sense of self.
That identity.
From all the different mechanisms.
And I think what happens is
is that we get to around midlife, which is where I was
The system starts to break down.
And it's no longer sufficient.
One of the most important ways to unpack
The unconscious
Structures.
is to ask ourselves
What is the benefit?
So for example, Shane.
I'm imagining you can relate.
To this.
structure.
Do you have your own story?
Uh
outsourcing your identity and sense of self worth onto something else. Do you have that?
Yeah.
And what was it, just so I have some context.
Well, sort of I get wrapped up in this, right? Like I'm I am Farnum Street, I am a podcast host.
Yeah.
So what is the benefit to you?
For me to see you.
Not as Shane.
The the just the nice guy.
who's struggling to
you know, balance good and bad behavior and just trying to be a human being. What is the benefit to you?
for me to see you as Farnum Street.
It's almost like an alter ego, right? Like it's almost like a different persona.
And that can
uh be good and bad I would imagine and and
But what's the benefit to you to having say
Me have a positive view of you.
Through me personally, or through me as like Farnum Street?
U S Farnum Street.
'Cause it's a protective shield, right? So it's like you can have a positive view of Farnum Street, but it also protects me from all the the negative reviews and all the people who don't have a positive view of it. So it it's sort of like
I wouldn't say an altered ego, but it it's
It allows me to
Protect myself.
And
have the shield around me. Right. So y uh you you you know, go to the head of the class, right? Why would I attach my sense of self to Farnum Street?
For example.
Yeah. Well, because it's a protective move.
Mm-hmm. Right. And so the benefit to you.
And you learn this as a child.
You learn this as a skill.
as a child.
The benefit to you.
More often than not.
If you go back to to the construct that I've written about in reboot, my first book.
is love, safety, and belonging.
Right. The benefit is
If I shape shift
I'm gonna feel loved.
I'm not gonna get kicked out of the family.
Or
You know, extent in this case it might be the community.
And I'm gonna feel safe.
Now
It's really important to understand that the mechanisms we're talking about.
More often than not.
were created
To keep
You
Safe.
I say this because when we start to unpack
These unconscious patterns
One impulse.
is to
Criticize herself.
Look at me, I operate behind a false front. I'm such a bad person.
That's also designed to protect you from getting to the core issue.
The real benefit of being curious about these
Structures.
goes to the heart of the question that you asked before.
Which is how do I transform this?
Because until you see it.
Until you see
That there's a benefit to you?
Yeah, let me give you an example. I was working with uh
uh a woman who's uh CEO of a small company last week we're at a
An offsite or retreat.
You know, she has fifteen employees and she was talking about one of the you know, how the employees just drive her crazy and, you know, nobody works as hard as she does and what's the problem here and all this.
And I said, Well who hired them?
And she smiled just the way you did. And she's like, Oh, well, yeah, yeah I said, Okay
So you're in charge.
Yes, and I can't stand it. I said, Yeah, but what's the benefit to you for being in charge?
And this
sneaky little grin kicked in, and she said,
Well, I'm the boss.
Now
Until we get to the point where we're willing
To risk the thing that this system was set up to protect.
We're not gonna change.
See, it was really important to me.
To be perceived
As
A financial wizard.
As a really successful VC.
It was really important.
Because it overcame
decades of a sense of poverty.
That I grew up with.
I had to be willing to be poor.
In order to be free.
Does that make any sense?
I think so. Does that relate to
One of the questions in reboot was
I wanna make sure I get this right. How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want? You got it.
That's the core organizing question. And and it's really important to unpack that question carefully.
I chose the word complicit.
For a reason.
I often talk about being the accomplice.
In a
Bank job.
Not the one who sticks up the teller.
Биз те респонсабиті
More often than not.
becomes part of that family lineage.
Well, this is the way we do things.
Right. And so for in order for me to belong
I
Adopt a methodology.
And I become an accomplice.
In those conditions.
So that's part one of the unpacking.
Part two of the unpacking is
I say I don't want.
So if we go back to the the to the woman CEO that I was talking about that I I spoke with last week
She says
She doesn't want the staff to always turn to her.
But boy howdy does it make her feel good.
Is she aware that it makes her feel good? Like are we aware of that consciously, or is that like an unconscious sort of
Dopamine almost response. Well I I'll tell you there was this funny moment where
She's aware now.
Ha ha
Yeah, how do we get that awareness? Like you you telling somebody that they're that
You know, you're you're creating the conditions that you say you don't want.
But those conditions are giving you a positive benefit.
Okay, what's happening for you right now?
'Cause we started making the connection.
Between your identity and Farnum Street.
What's the benefit to what's the downside? Let's talk about that for a moment.
How anxious do you get if a podcast guest doesn't show up or a conversation doesn't go well or
How anxious do you get?
Oh, I don't get anxious about that. I think I get anxious maybe about
I think one of my big fears is like disappointing people. Like I don't want to disappoint people. And what would happen if you disappoint what would happen if you disappoint them?
I would feel like I I let them down.
So what? So you let them down.
What's the risk?
I don't I don't like feeling like I let somebody down. Like I don't like feeling I wasted somebody's time or Okay. So do you hear the little voice in your head that says
Shane.
Come on, you wasted my time.
Yeah.
Now notice the feelings.
Feelings might be shame.
Really powerful feeling? Might be guilt.
And without unpacking it so deeply as that it feels like a jerry session, right?
How old are those feelings?
As long as I can remember.
There you go.
Now let's name a truth.
Okay.
As a bunch of protoplasm in embryo.
In uterus.
You didn't have shame.
So somewhere between conception
And today
You learned
To feel shame.
If you wasted someone's time.
Mm.
Now you asked
How unconscious is this?
We just spent three minute.
on this issue, so it's not as deeply unconscious as we think it is.
But it's not
common that we talk about it.
What is more common is you might say to your team on the podcast
You make it
uh nervous about whether or not it was a good episode, and I don't want the listener to feel that they wasted time and they could sense what's going on around you.
Family members might respond to it.
And then all of a sudden you as someone who holds power within your organization
are starting to impact
The psychological safety of those around you
Because you're not really talking about what's going on. What's really going on is
God, I would feel so ashamed.
If all the effort
That went into this episode?
And listeners sat there and said, Uh
What a waste of time.
I can't believe this guy. I mean, he used to be good, but he's gone off the rails here.
Right. That totally is a loop in my head. Yeah.
Right. Right. That song is on repeat a lot. See, now what you're doing.
With a little laughter?
And a little levity.
is starting to release yourself from the grip of it.
Now imagine
Every time that loop starts to play.
You get to blow it a kiss.
Mm.
Cause the truth.
People don't listen.
to a podcast like this.
For one episode.
They develop a relationship with you.
And through your skillful questioning?
They come to understand.
People.
And you make their lives a little bit better.
Not every book we write, not every song we write, not every painting we do.
is gonna move people in exactly the same way.
But that doesn't mean you've failed.
So it's interesting when you say that.
My
typical reaction, including right now, my default.
If you will.
Is I don't hear any of that.
Hm.
None of those uh positive things
They're not like in my head, they just go in one ear and out the other. They don't there's no sticking. So it's a little Teflon.
Yeah, but negative. Oh, like those stick. Why do I remember those so much more or those feelings? And sometimes they're super positive. I want to preface this with sometimes they're motivating and they drive me and they give me energy. And it's I don't think it's about energy, but maybe it is in talking with you.
Like there was this time uh comment on the New York Times profile that they wrote on me
Uh
And it literally, you know, I framed it and I put it in the office. And it was like
Uh, this guy's enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame.
Mm and it drove me to uh to be better and to work harder and to pursue
more of what I was doing in a way that I thought was healthy, but maybe it's not. Well, let's just for this conversation, let's put aside the discussion of whether it's positive or negative.
Okay. Okay. Because I want to really unpack it.
Um
So we've been talking about what a psych psychologist would call the secondary benefit. What is the benefit of a particular behavior?
Okay.
So in this case
You've got a Teflon coating inside.
Mm-hmm.
And so when a positive statement comes in.
Like, you know, a fried egg, it just slips right off the bottom of the pan.
It it cannot stick.
All right.
What is the benefit?
Of not being able to hear
Positive.
Praise.
What's the benefit to you?
Because you just touched a little bit on it.
I don't know. I don't know if I see it because I
What the benefit to me of not hearing it would be
It serves no purpose. I don't need
Positive reinforcement. I wanna know what I'm doing.
That I can do better.
Yeah.
But the positive offers no sort of like what I can do better.
Maybe, I don't know. Like I'm just thinking out loud here. I've never actually explored these questions. Well, and and I I feel honored that you're allowing me to explore these questions with you.
Because we're backing our way into some of the questi the answers to some of the questions that you have, which is what is what you know, how how does this start to get unpacked?
You said to me
That you framed
That
Snarky comment.
He is enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame.
Mm-hmm.
And you use it as motivation.
Yeah.
Tell me again that you don't know what the benefit is.
Oh, that's just total mode it's a fire that doesn't go out like it burned. Okay.
It's a fire that doesn't go out.
Burns.
And the result is you get better and better and better at what you do.
So that you could quiet the voice in your head that might say, Yeah, he used to be good, but he's not good any
Or any other feeling, right?
I you know, uh you might feel competitive. You might feel like I need to be the best.
All of those feelings.
And like many of us.
You have been socialized.
To use negative.
To motivate.
Do we get socialized or is that like inherent?'Cause I can remember doing this as a child from the time I was like five or six. Okay, so now we get to the nature versus nurture question. Yeah. Which which I'm not really sure.
Okay. But I will tell you it's really hard for me to imagine when I picture a little baby
Yeah.
I'm gonna not poop!
I'm gonna right, I'm gonna like making these decisions.
Now is there a
uh an evolutionary
Benefit to
To this kind of thinking.
Possibly.
Possibly.
I can definitely see
family cultural benefits.
Mm. Right. So for example
If uh and I notice this a lot with
uh the descendants of immigrants
or the descendants of those who might have survived pogroms.
or the descendants of those who might have experienced famine.
There's a particular attachment.
Two
holding on to the possibility of negative outcome.
Catastrophizing?
to drive themselves
Further and further.
Because
in the the the psychological construct of the being
If you relax
Then fill in the blank.
Something bad will happen.
And I wanna be clear, remember before I said let's m let's remove positive and negative just for a moment.
I can see how this drives.
uh outcomes.
That we want.
Mm-hmm. Right? I grew up terrified of not having enough money.
And I got to the point.
Where like my grandfather, I felt I finally had enough money?
And it was the emptiness.
In that moment.
That shattered me.
Because
the the the negative belief system, which was I will never have enough money to feel safe.
was so positive.
In driving me and so effective in driving me?
That it literally drove me crazy.
Let's put this construct to the side for a moment and take it again out of positive and negative realm.
And let's go into
this other realm that we've been talking about, which is
What I would call conscious adulthood.
So like it or not, Shane, you're starting to wake up.
It's the last five minutes of your 20 minute meditation session, and you're starting to wake up.
And you're sitting there going, There's a cost associated.
With not hearing the positive, isn't there?
What's the cost to you?
Of not being able to take in
The positive.
Well, all the benefits, right? Like knowing that I help people and knowing that I impact people and feeling
Like I'm doing something meaningful and rewarding and
offering something into the world that people resonate with.
Okay, I want you to hold that thought.
And let's imagine.
Mm forgive me, I can't tell. How old are you?
Forty four.
Okay, let's imagine you're eighty-four.
And it on your deathbed.
You are still
unable to take in the positives of your life.
But boy, you were really driven by those negatives.
Hm.
How does that feel?
Feels pretty hollow, I would imagine.
What word?
Hollow. Say that again.
Hello.
You see what I'm talking about?
Yeah, it's like you worked your whole life and you you got to this place that
Uh similar to you, right? Like you get to this place and you help people and you
But you didn't appreciate or like you didn't feel like you did. You didn't have any of the rewards of doing that, I guess. The internal rewards, not the external rewards.
The the intrinsic
sense of self worth.
There's an aspect to that of like forgiving yourself, right? For your mistakes, for your flaws, for your slip ups, for your
How do we do that? Like how do we learn to forgive ourselves?
Notice when I said what is the benefit?
And I moved away from the impulse, which is to s to see
The benefit we're seeking is something negative.
Mm. Oh, I'm just trying to feel safe.
Yeah.
Now if we can project into
Uh little munchkins in our lives, rug rats, people that we love who are just kids.
And we see them struggling.
Mm-hmm.
What is it we want them to feel about themselves?
We want to help them.
Wanna take away the like I think of my kids, right? And my my intuition, which I often
uh have to consciously overrule, but my first gut instinct is to like jump in
to save them to make things easy for them. And I would imagine that a lot of people are like that.
Yes, no ploughing.
Just you know, the clearing the road. But but the feeling I think you you know, how old are your kids?
Thirteen and fourteen.
God bless pre teen teen years.
Two boys, so yeah. Self esteem really challenged.
Yeah.
Really, really challenged. And what is it that you want them to feel about themselves
When there's no.
Forty five.
Oh, resiliency, right? Like I want them to be able to handle all the ups and downs of life and feel good about themselves. And feel good about themselves. Yeah. When when we're we're stuck
In this mode of using the negative to motivate ourselves.
It's really, really hard to let go of the negative and forgive ourselves.
We would like your sons at forty six and forty four.
Respectively.
Two
Have the resilience.
To be motivated to do good in the world.
To do good work in the world.
To be a positive force.
But when they fail.
Or when they disappoint?
for them not to see themselves as a piece of crap
Mm-hmm. But to be able to
Taken the joy.
Of good work.
Without being devastated.
By failure.
psychologically, emotionally, psychically devastated.
Now we we want this for them.
Can you can you feel that?
Yeah.
Okay, so here's the unlock.
You have to do that for yourself first.
Because the Teflon
Rejection of the negative
That motivates you?
They're learning.
Every day.
These are one of the unconscious rules that we pass down to our kids that we we get as as
Kids as well that hold us back or hold us.
That's right.'Cause what do they want?
More than anything else in the world.
Other than
pleasing their parents.
I'm gonna be just like him.
Or
For those of us with negative situations, I'm gonna be anything but
That person.
I think that's in part where where I come from, right? Anything but there was a person in my life. I don't want to get into too many details, but anything but that person. But notice the the positive and negative. Positive and negative. You know, we w we talk about resilience. I often talk about equanimity.
and equanimity as the the real goal.
That resilience is the path.
Being able to be resilient.
Against
The forces.
Is
A wonderful adulting skill.
But what we're really after?
is the equanimity
The equanimity that says
I may have made a mistake.
And I
Regret.
Making that mistake.
And with remorse.
I will learn.
From that mistake.
But my sense of self worth
is not at risk.
I will use the positive experience of that mistake.
To learn and grow and do a better job.
For the joy.
of doing a better job.
Not because I'm being chased by a demon that says
You're a piece of crap.
I think it's hard for me to relate to that because, you know, for my
Entire memory.
It's like a chip on my shoulder.
Right. And that has served me
Very well.
Right, like in in life and
Um it's sort of
I always view that as a positive.
I always thought chip, you know, a chip on your shoulder would be
Oh, that's not bad. That motivates you. It drives you. It doesn't like get in the way of you. It doesn't get in the way of you.
Yeah, but uh like it doesn't get in the like um
It can it can cause you paralysis, right? Like it can also just uh cause you to do nothing. So I think, you know, chips on shoulders tend to go in in two different ways, right? They tend to end up being like
Tom Brady or they tend to end up being a
Uh
You know, people who
struggle through life and blame it, they're a victim and, you know, sort of blame it on
Those circumstances.
That's the fear.
The fear is if you
Acknowledge the chips on your shoulder.
You're going to somehow come across as if you were a victim.
And you can't stand people who go through life.
As victims.
Am I right about that? Yeah, yeah. So that's also another belief system. If I let the positive in.
In a sense.
The risk
Is that I'm gonna be complacent.
I'm gonna be the victim.
I'm gonna be sort of drifting through life and I won't accomplish anything.
Uh Josh Wolf, who is uh a V C at Lux Capital, likes to say chips on shoulders put chips in pockets.
And
He is
Right.
When he speaks about that.
And I am less focused.
On
Helping people become
Outwardly wildly successful.
then I am focused on
People
including people who are outwardly wildly successful.
People feeling resilient.
And
Feeling that
Equanimity.
So that they don't wake up at forty five years old.
Feeling.
Hello.
Can you walk me through this a little bit? So uh you get a negative comment on a book or you you catch yourself thinking, friends who have more money than you and you you should have
You should have like
more money or work harder, or however you feel less of yourself in that moment. What is the internal
Voice in your head saying.
How do you get out of that loop?
I'll I'll speak about money for a moment. You know, my best friends
uh in in business and my best friends in in many ways
Or Fred Wilson and Brad Felt.
Two of the most successful VCs in the world.
And I walked away from the business.
When it was the three of us
Making hay.
And so I can sort of look at them and go
Oh God.
Why did I walk away?
And yet
What?
constantly comes back. I mean I had lunch with Fred
a couple of months ago and he made me cry.
because he looked at me and he said, You know
Jerry.
You you you are on fire.
You you do work.
that you were literally born to do.
And you know, it's one thing
To feel that about yourself. It's another thing to have somebody whom you
Love.
Say that about you.
And that's quite powerful. So there's a there's there's there's there's a feeling that comes in.
Which is, Oh, if only I'd stayed in the venture business.
Right. I'd be, you know, mountain of gold and mountain of gold. And then what would happen is, Oh, you know, I would do such good work in the world and I would help this person and I would do the'cause I don't want to be motivated by greed.
Then what happens is
And literally this will happen in a journaling session.
And I'll say to myself, but dude.
You have enough.
You literally have enough.
And so
For that experience enough.
Is it powerful?
Antidote.
Because
Enough.
was an elusive concept.
Enough.
was
uh something that just never seemed possible.
For teachings on that, the Buddhists have this notion of a hungry ghost.
and wraith like figure who eats and eats and eats and never feels satiated.
And Shane, dude.
There are
millions of hungry ghosts in power positions right now.
They could have all the money in the world. They could win the game of Monopoly. They could bend the game of life with all the toys.
And they're still hungry ghosts.
And so
Those notions are really, really powerful for me.
On the writing question, that's the hardest one for me.
That's actually harder than money.
And it's hard.
Because the little boy in me
values so much.
The ability to write well.
Mm.
It motivated me as a child.
To know
That my words
Impact.
Positively.
Other people?
Gives me a sense of meaning and purpose.
And so if I hear a negative
Comment
Um
It can be really hard.
And
uh, you know, you're a creative as a creative
You put yourself out there.
And
You wonder.
How are people going to react?
What I have learned over time.
is to lean into that edge.
And ask myself
Am I proud?
Of what I've written.
And so if I can get to a point where I feel proud
There's a liberation that comes from that.
I wanna go back to the word enough. I think that's a really important
word that people struggle with because it goes back to what we originally talked about.
in terms of playing by other people's scoreboards.
Bigger houses, better cars.
Uh we live in a world where
Instagram and all these other social media apps feed us.
the very, very best moments of other people's lives. It used to be we would live on this street in like nineteen twenty, and maybe somebody would get a new car
But our our comparison group was sort of our neighbors, and you know, we were socioeconomically pretty close, we were politically probably politically aligned, you know, we had a lot in common with people, and people got further ahead together.
Uh and now it seems like
We can see everybody in the world, we can see the best
most happiest moments of their life or
Maybe not happy moments, maybe just the moments they want us to think are happy. It's that persona that they're projecting.
that persona, that that alter ego, maybe, perhaps. But
It makes us feel
as we don't have enough and that we should be doing that or
You know, we should be why aren't I on vacation now? Why don't I have a new car? Why aren't I flying around in a private jet?
How do we how do we learn to come to grips with enough?
I think that you you hit upon a core motivation that really um
distorts almost everything that we do.
Right, and our children.
or growing up in a world where um
They are repeatedly
Shone.
a message which is that they are not enough.
Mm-hmm.
And there's a lot.
In our
um economic systems that are built on this, right?
Advertising.

Uh activates.
that effective advertising says you you may be great, but you'd be much better if you had this car.
versus that clunker that you're driving.
Right.
And um we know that that that this is true, right? We we have myths.
And stories
uh that we use to teach parables
That that that
Uh
Try to reinforce the message that just as you are, you are enough.
Mm-hmm.
Just as you are.
You are enough.
And uh
But it is
For all the reasons that we talked about before.
the Teflon that exists with inside of you.
There is this subtle secondary benefit.
Uh which is if I feel that I am enough
Then I will somehow be a complacent slug.
Now again, I want I'm gonna do something unfair. I want you as a parent, as a father
Imagine your two sons.
never feeling that they are enough.
W when you say this
What comes to mind is that if
Individually,
This is terrible.
Mm-hmm.
Collectively.
It leads to a lot of progress.
Mm.
Right.
So as an individual
human.
It really sucks. I don't want my kids to ever feel that.
But if we zoom out.
Not feeling enough, not feeling like we have enough, not feeling
It drives us to innovate. It drives us to do new things. It drives us to take risks and chances. And those risks and chances
make medical advances, they, you know, send satellites into space. They start electric car company, you know, that feeling
Also
propels society forward, or am I wrong?
Or or or take over some pre existing electric car company. Oh I didn't mean that. Somebody started an electric car company, right? Because they were motivated to do so. I wasn't specifically mentioning
I think that you're partially right.
Think of the most brilliant ideas that you have ever had.
Think of the Eureka moments.
That people.
uh often have.
In my experience
Those real innovative moments
actually occur when the brain
is relaxed.
When the heart is relaxed.
Okay.
When we're not.
Terrified that we are not enough.
Now if if if we know that that's true at the individual basis
What is the
uh expression of that on a communal basis.
And the com the expression of that, I think, is
When
We feel
Collectively.
whether it's at at a country level or a company level.
when we can f relax into the joy of doing something
Magnificent.
Something magical?
greater innovation comes.
You you look at, you know, a classic example of a community coming together.
The United States
Space race.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And that was motivated by
A lot of fear.
Of not being enough and being competitive.
For most of the
What's it been fifty, sixty years?
We have
Balanced.
Both the negative aspects of that
Oh my God, it's a cold war and we've got to compete with the Soviets.
with the positive.
Reaching for the stars.
Creating something extraordinary.
In fact
I would say what has sustained us.
is the reach for the stars.
Experience.
You know, Robert Browning, the poet
has a wonderful couplet he says Man's reach should exceed his grasp.
Or else what's a heaven for?
And I think that the
The the counterbalance to using I'm not enough.
As motivation.
is
Reaching for heaven.
Okay, so y I am enough.
I don't have to write another book.
I'm enough.
Mm-hmm.
But what if I wrote a book that changed?
The world.
What if I wrote a book?
That made
Somebody who's struggling.
feel a little bit better about themselves.
What if I reach for those stars?
That's when I think the better angels of our nature come forward.
What does that mean, better angels of our nature?
Well, remember when we were kids and we'd watch like the Flintstones and
Fred Flintstone would have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Yes. Well, it's actually a phrase from Lincoln.
In which he talks about the better angels.
That exists within us.
There are.
better aspects of our personality.
And when we
Acknowledge
The negative self-talk.
Acknowledge it.
Thank it for doing its job.
Of keeping us safe.
But let it know that you're okay.
You're an adult?
You got this?
you start to give space for the better angels of your nature.
To come forward and say to you.
Shane, you've accomplished amazing things.
You never have to record a great
Podcast again.
Imagine this new conversation that you're gonna have.
that's gonna reach out and someone who's never listened to your podcast before.
is gonna be motivated and they're gonna write to you and they're gonna say
Dude.
You really made me think.
And I went back and I listened to old episodes and blah blah blah.
That's the better angel.
Of your nature.
different sorts of motivation towards the same sort of
It's reaching for the stars.
Yeah. You know this internet cartoon, this New Yorker cartoon.
Where
You know, you see these kids sitting around a fire and one kid is sitting in a
You know, ragged old suit.
or one adult is sitting in a ragged oat suit and he says, But for one brief shining moment,
You know, our profits were through the roof.
Right.
And he's referencing change and the crazy state of the world and all of this stuff.
implicit in that cartoon, which is poignant and bitter.
Mm.
Is this notion of
What did you do?
With
The life that you were given.
Now that's a that's a
hard thing to be motivated by.
But I will tell you, I'd rather be motivated by that voice.
And then
The
Extrinsic voice that says
If you don't succeed
You're somehow a piece of crap.
I think that is a powerful motivator in terms of and I often catch myself thinking about this and
Uh I don't
It motivates me and it also sort of like uh
Um
It's the gap between
where I am and where I see my potential.
Yes.
There is something powerful.
And purpose driven.
And acknowledging and living in that gap.
Between who we are
And who we'd like to be.
Without getting sucked into guilt.
Without getting sucked into shame.
Because we're not
Living amongst the stars.
But I'll be damned.
If I leave this earth.
Not having tried.
And that to me is the perfect antidote to the hollowness.
And the depression
That I experienced.
In my late thirties.
Do you have a ritual around journaling? Do you ask yourself the same questions? What is your your
routine of journaling look like?
And how is it powerful? Well, to be clear, I've been journaling since I was thirteen.
And I turned sixty this year.
So journaling is a fundamental part of who I am.
What I do is I take stock.
Of myself.
I'm tired or I'm
My back is hurting or
I had a wonder like yesterday I had a wonderful phone call.
With my sister Anne.
And um
I told her about
Uh having visited our home, our childhood home in Brooklyn last weekend.
And
That brought up all sorts of feelings.
Um and we shared feelings, uh that and I wrote about all of that this morning in the journal.
And in it and in a way, it's kind of like processing
What happened.
For me.
And then it clears the day.
And
And then I meditate.
And then I will exercise, right? And that tends to be the the the ritual.
Now I hesitate.
Because
I s I've
Often spoken about.
journaling and morning rituals and there is a
A little bit of a
Tendency
in our world right now.
to place
A little too much emphasis on the form.
Well where do you where do you journal? Oh, do you meditate? Where
And I just wanna bring people back to the function.
Because the function.
Is taking a fix on your life.
How are you feeling?
Right.
Now.
And how is it impacting your life?
These days.
So that we're raising consciousness.
So that we're not operating on autopilot.
We need to go deeper on two things there. Not operating on autopilot.
And processing.
emotions. When you say that
The the words.
I just sort of understand them, but when I think about what that means, I don't know if I do understand that. What does it mean to process your emotions? Um and what you're hitting upon, Chain, is the fact that we're not socialized.
to pay attention to
Feelings.
But feelings have consequences in our life regardless of whether or not we pay attention to them.
For example
You might be feeling
Afraid of
The market going down and you've lost money.
And you're carrying that feeling.
And you open you start your day and then
Your son comes to you and says, Dad, I need twenty bucks. You know, I'm going under the what am I made of money?
Right.
So now what we've just done is asked your child
to bear the burden of your anxiety.
About money.
For which
He is ill prepared.
And totally at not at fault.
Or it could be job related, or it could be the world related, or it could be that you had a fight with your spouse, or it could be and what ends up happening is
This unprocessed stuff
spills out and impacts other people.
Right?
Um you could you could without processing it, you could go to the gym.
and be feeling really like err and you're not paying attention. And then you do a deadlift.
And all of a sudden you blow out your back.
'Cause you're not
Pri present.
I'm I'm really trying to make pedestrian examples of unprocessed
T so that we could make sense.
of what it means, you ask the question, what does it mean to process the feelings?
It means to take'em down, to examine them.
And then to put them back.
So they don't plague you for the rest of the day.
So that you can then be fully present for your colleagues, for your spouse, for your children.
So that you can be the adult you want to be.
You leave them on the page. You feel them.
And that's what you're doing when you're writing them. So you let yourself feel them rather than suppress them.
And by feeling them they sort of dissipate because there's a natural dissiping our feelings.
And if we suppress them then they they sort of boil over in these weird moments where we overreact.
to everyday situations like the the child and the twenty dollars. You you just got it.
You just got it.
What other morning rituals do you have?
Silence is really important for me.
It's part of the way that I process.
When I was in college I was so busy, I worked three jobs and
going to college at the same time and it was
I I didn't take enough time in the morning.
And so I would always feel like I was just like running at full steam, full speed.
And um
So I'd say writ large, the larger ritual for me is
Taking a few hours of just not
Engaging with the world.
I I typically wake early.
Um
uh somewhere between five and six, but I don't wake with like, oh, I'm gonna be super productive and you know
drink my bulletproof coffee and you know, like I don't do any of that stuff, you know. I just I
Like this morning when I was meditating, we have a
hundred plus year old cottonwood tree on our farm.
And there's a nice little uh platform underneath. And so that's where I meditated this morning.
And
I noticed that I had a um
Particular nuthatch bird.
Come visit.
Relatively rare.
in our part.
And
It was kinda neat.
to listen to its song.
So
What's my ritual?
Paying attention.
I wanna come back to a word that has come up a lot in this
uh last hour or so, which is resilience.
Uh how do we as parents go about
developing that in our kids. And more importantly, I think you're gonna turn this around to we have to exemplify how do we how do we do that in ourselves? How do we build our resilience?
Well, let's start with the goal.
Why do you want them to be resilient?
What is it that you want for them?
to handle the ups and downs of life with
Equanimity.
So resilience isn't the goal.
Equanimity is the goal.
Resilience in terms of perseverance and keep going and being able to Well what if they keep going on the wrong thing?
Okay, so what is resilience and how does it help us? Okay, so resilience without discernment
can create stubbornness.
Resilience with discernment.
And skill.
means
Being able to apply stick toitiveness
Perseverance
In the right.
Ways.
Okay.
So you might have a son who wants to play hockey.
And the first
Game he goes to he
He does.
Poor job.
Okay.
Do you force your son?
To go back on the ice?
Or do you help your son understand?
What's really at play?
Well, I feel ashamed because I'm not as good as well, maybe you can contribute to the team even though you're not as good as Johnny.
Or maybe you just enjoy playing hockey.
And so you're not gonna play for the NH NHL.
That's okay.
You see the opportunity.
to really unpack that.
And that
creates what I think is the resilience
That extends beyond
the individual moment.
The realization that
Things can go not as you planned.
And you're still okay.
And that is equimity.
And so we develop
That by
Shifting our focus.
Understanding what the benefit is and the cost. That's discernment.
What's really motivating me?
Why do I do this?
I like that a lot. I wanna I wanna take that to relationships.
And talk to me about
How
Stubbornness.
manifests itself in a relationship where we end up sort of butting heads with somebody we love and we care about
And we don't
intend to, we're not consciously thinking about it. How do we get out of this loop where we're
We're both being stubborn about something.
Mm. I I promise I won't ask you about your relationships.
But I think you're absolutely right that this shows up in there. And and there's a couple of things that I would say about that.
One, again, using the same tools of unpacking and understanding what's important to you. So for example, in my own life.
One of the trigger points for me.
That's very well known and my partner Ali knows this very, very well.
It's very important for me to be generous.
And
If I feel that my generosity is being taken advantage of.
I go from being Spider Man to being the Hulk.
And that
Goes back to childhood.
Where I felt
That my
compassionate, gentle nature was taken advantage of.
Okay.
So that is
Programming.
That lies deep with inside of me.
And I'm fully conscious of it.
And it will still run occasionally.
So
You asked
How does this discernment show up in in good relational skills?
One thing.
Uh that
Uh
my partner Allie and I practice that is
Very, very helpful. And this is a line that um comes from Brene Brown.
And it and it's simply the story that I'm telling myself.
So imagine
Uh Hulk in me gets triggered.
With discernment.
With the self knowledge, with what I call radical self inquiry, I know that that hulk lives within me.
And rather than naming that with shame.
Which I used to. Oh, you're right. Oh it's too terrible.
I I've welcomed in that part of me and understand that that part of me
Shows up.
So that I don't
feel taken advantage of so that I feel safe.
I now layer in a new line, which is okay, the story I'm telling myself is that you're about to take advantage of me.
The concominant
reaction the supporting reaction
From Ali will be.
She'll look at me and she'll say.
If you don't want to do this, you don't have to do this.
I'm not manipulating you.
I love you.
And I appreciate your generosity.
And all of a sudden
Hulk is just sniffing flowers and is happy and
returns to Bruce Banner state.
Now I think we all have those old programmings.
The key is taking a fix on those and really understanding
where they're operating.
And being gentle with yourself when they show up.
So they don't have to have the power to overwhelm you.
Hm.
And then you give your partner a tool.
When you say the story I'm telling myself.
You're gonna leave me.
You're attracted to that other person.
You're gonna spend all our money.
We're gonna be homeless.
Right.
'Cause usually the stories we tell ourselves
are really pretty extreme.
I really think that's a powerful tool. What's required to do that?
is psychological safety in a relationship. And I don't
think many of us feel completely safe in a relationship.
A few years ago.
I had a breakthrough thought.
And that is that
Uh love is safe.
And if it's not safe, it's not love.
And this is also a lesson.
that many of us grew up with
out really understanding.
Now
Y I agree with you. We need
to be psychologically safe in the relationship.
And
That safety
is not just the responsibility of the other person.
For example
If I was
Socialized.
And raised.
As many
Young boys are.
To be distant from my feelings?
When my partner says to me, Well, how do you feel about
And I can't answer that question.
that may feel unsafe.
Just by itself.
Yeah.
And so
Part of the work of adulthood.
Is
overcoming and really working with these constructs.
what I often refer to as subroutines.
That we grew up with.
So that we can
then approach the relationship.
from a more adult cell.
perspective.
You have to come to that through yourself, right? Like you have to
address yourself and then you're trying to create safety with another person.
Mm-hmm.
And th those are sort of two different things. You can't be safe with somebody else if you're not safe with yourself. Like if you don't
Well, accept yourself.
You know, another person is not gonna give you what you need because then you're you're so you're co dependent like you're totally dependent on them to Yes.
Uh and that's unfair to them and that's unfair to the relationship.
And if you're And unfair to your children because you're modeling something that's not a healthy relationship.
But keep that you
If you want to trust
The relationship, you have to have this psychological safety together. And that that psychological safety allows you to be vulnerable. It allows you to tell your partner what you're feeling.
Allows you to tell your partner the story you're telling yourself and it allows you to be your whole self. What are the steps that couples can take?
If they're in a good place.
Individually.
To create that space together.
And build that safety, no matter where they're at.
Whether they're at the beginning of the journey or, you know, sort of like they've been together for twenty or thirty years. How do you maintain it with your wife? How do you coach people to sort of develop that at the, you know, we just got married. How do we develop this?
couple years ago, um
U my partner Allie.
And I
What happened was I was sitting at the dining table.
And uh or she was sitting at the dining table and I passed behind her.
with a load of laundry in my hands.
And I was headed down to the basement to do the laundry.

And she poked her head up and said
The story I'm telling myself is that you're leaving me.
And I said.
Hun, I'm just doing the laundry.
And it was a funny moment.
But
In that moment, she was able to reveal that.
Something that might have been shameful.
Like, what are you crazy?
Well I'm I
She just named the feeling that came up for her.
Because part of her old trigger
is being abandoned.
I'll t I'll turn it around and I'll tell a story about myself.
Just
Two years ago.
Um, you you you read Reboot, so you know that I grew up under
pretty adverse childhood circumstances. A lot of violence in the family, which led to a very
I I wouldn't call it full on body dysmorphia.
But a really complicated relationship with my own body.
One day I'm in the our closet and I'm getting dressed and I pull on a pair of jeans.
And Allie, who loves me.
Looks me up and down.
Right.
In her mind.
She's saying, Do those genes look good on him?
And what triggered in me
Was shame.
It was like a lightning bolt. It went right back to childhood and all sorts of negative experiences I had as a child.
Now I had a moment. I had
A choice.
My response was gonna be Hulk like.
And it was going to be, what's the matter with you?
And she would have said.
Totally unsafe.
What the hell's going on? This guy's a crazy man.
But instead I put my hand on my heart
And I said, Who I just went right back to childhood.
You did nothing wrong.
I'm sixty.
It took me a long time to develop that skill.
But I will tell you
Yeah.
When we can live our life with that kind of discernment.
Mm-hmm.
we can create our own psychologically safe.
Moments. So what could have been
A really difficult conversation.
Became
An opportunity to bond.
Even more.
This is hard.
I know anybody's listening to this is saying this is really imp hard.
But I will tell you it's not impossible.
Do you think a lot of people
are scared to be vulnerable because
Deep down they don't think they're lovable if somebody saw all of them.
They wouldn't be
That's the lesson I learned as a child.
Yeah.
And more than anything, they probably inherited that belief system.
from one or both of their parents or caregivers.
And they in turn.
Probably inherited it.
And so on and so on and so on and so on.
The question
For all of us.
Is what do we want to pass on?
What is the lineage we would like to leave?
Whether we're talking about the planet.
Or we're talking about society, or we're talking about
Our internal family dynamics.
What do you want to leave?
Your descendants.
When I think about that as purpose.
It overcomes all of that.
Mishigas, good Yiddish word, foolishness.
That says.

You didn't do enough.
You didn't make enough money.
You didn't have enough success. Mm-hmm.
Your book's not a bestseller, whatever it is, the story you tell yourself. Uh
Mm.
Enough.

We we use the word discernment a lot and we we've used that in sort of like
the context of
Uh
Yeah, choosing
And
that that's part of being an adult, but also part of being an adult.
Which we haven't talked about.
that involves discernment is
The people you surround yourself with, your friends.
And why do we keep people in our lives that bring us down or that we know aren't
aren't right, but we're scared to detach and let go and
How do we how do we change this?
Well you I think you just answered your own question.
We're scared to detach and let go.
Right.
'Cause the first question I was gonna w when when when we look at patterns in our lives
and maintaining relationships that are not good for us.
Is a good example of a pattern.
Right. I remember working with a client who was complaining to me about her boss and her boss's name was John.
And one day I I said
Wait.
Wasn't your last boss named John?
She goes, Yeah.
And the boss before that? Wasn't he named John?
Yeah.
What's your father's name?
John.
Yeah.
Ha ha
Yeah.
Um
When we look at those patterns, it is so useful to ask ourselves.
Without inducing shame or blame.
What is the benefit?
Why do I keep this relationship going?
When they hurt me.
It's like
What we need to develop is a kind of, you know
body hacking device that tells us
Don't
Do that.
You
You do that and you see this friend
And all you feel is terrible about yourself.
A
Why do you persist in seeing this friend?
And B, what is it about the relationship with this friend?
that makes you feel bad about yourself.
You see that discernment coming in again?
That what what I call that radical self inquiry
You know, we we go see that friend that makes us feel bad.
And then we come home and we feel bad and we take it out on our spouse.
We don't ask the question, Why did I go in the first place?
Like like I asked that
That that CEO. Well, who hired all these people?
Who can't
make a decision on their own.
And
What was the benefit to you?
What do I get out of this?
No matter how much shame
The answer produces.
Ooh.
Yeah.
I like hanging around with that person'cause it makes me feel like I am just as rich and as they are.
And I like to be cool. I want to be a member of the cool kids club.
Or I like hanging out with that person'cause I can drink and I'm not drinking alone, so I feel better about myself.
Nicely done.
So the real issue isn't the friend.
Right.
The real issue is your relationship with alcohol.
Or your relationship with money or there you go.
Like how do you end that?
Do you have a conversation with them? Do you just stop inviting them to things? What do you do?
My impulse would be
Always.
To have a conversation.
Because the practice of having the conversation, even if the conversation isn't well received.
is a good muscle for you to develop.
Mm-hmm.
But you let go of the hope of quote unquote.
changing the other person
You're not in the fix people business.
But you can start the conversation that says, Hey Joe.
I was thinking about our relationship and I realized that one of the values I get out of the relationship is that it feeds a part of me that I don't really want to feed anymore.
The part of me that feels like it's cool to party and and and drink.
And
There are aspects of our relationship that I really enjoy and I don't really enjoy that aspect.
And you do not have to change.
Ciao.
But I'm changing my relationship with that part of me.
If we're gonna get together, we're not gonna drink.
I took responsibility.
And I shift the dynamic. Now if Joe says
Well that's fucking boring. I don't have any
desire to get together with you.
Well, isn't that revealing?
Okay.
Love is safe.
And if it's not safe
It's not love.
Because if that was really love
it would be safe enough for you to say, Hey, I don't feel like drinking.
You can share if it's safe enough.
the complicated reasons that it might be that you don't want to be drinking.
I mean, my father was alcoholic. I don't like to be
Mm.
Even social drinking situations.
That's me.
I'm not judging somebody else.
Yeah.
That's what I bring.
to the equation. That's my responsibility.
A lot of us don't have practice with that conversation.
Yeah.
Right. So we we we have these competing things going on in our head, which is
I wanna be a good person. I wanna be a good friend.
Uh I want to
Um
Be there for people.
I know this relationship.
Isn't serving me.
But I also don't quite know how to end that and maintain the I'm a good person, I'm a good friend, I'm a like So, Shane, in your observation, I think you you
C.
Something really profound.
Which is that
We talked about socialisation as children.
And what we learned.
We learn about e uh outsourcing, if you will, a sense of self worth.
to objects, to accomplishments, to goals.
We
Uh we talked about internalization of patterns in order to keep ourselves safe.
or loved or that we belong.
We talked about
inheriting certain parrot patterns. Now you're talking about the fact that we
tend not to teach our children.
How to speak.
Mm-hmm.
In a way.
That is life giving.
And life affirming.
Yeah.
Right. And then we wonder why
Relationship struggle?
We wonder why we have
Toxic
workplaces.
Mm-hmm.
Well, because we give power to people.
Who don't know how to use their words.
Think about our kids when they're kids. We don't hit, we use our words.
But we don't teach them how to use their words.
And and for many folks, especially folks socialized as men, as boys.
We don't even give them the words for their feelings.
One hundred percent.
Oh, you're angry. Oh, that's the word.
Oh, you're sad.
Oh, that's the word.
We just feel the violence, the physical.
And oh.
You're crying?
I'll give you something to cry about.
Rather than creating these conditions
Where we raise humans.
Who can say
Hm.
The story I'm telling myself is that you're gonna leave me.
Or
This relationship isn't working for me.
And it's not because you're a bad person or I'm a bad person, but because this relationship isn't working for me.
For all sorts of reasons that I can now name.
Because I have words.
I think that's powerful, but w we don't get taught that I'm speaking of myself, I mean maybe other people do, but like
Nobody's sort of modeled how to end a relationship. Nobody's sort of modeled how to have a difficult conversation with a friend. Nobody's sort of modeled
Uh, in fact it was just the opposite, right? It was like you avoid difficult conversations, you you don't have them, you
And I think that the teenage boy thing is like you become an asshole until the woman breaks up with you.
Exactly. It we we have two choices.
Basically that we present.
Mostly males of the species.
But
A lot of folks.
Say nothing.
And passive aggressively act out.
Mm-hmm.
Until
You can't take it anymore.
And you act of aggressively.
Actual.
And we have these two
Choices.
Okay.
And there's a whole
range of human experience in between?
That is bypassed.
Right.
We don't teach children to say I'm skeired.
Mm-hmm.
Or that we we allow it until a certain age, and then our expectation is somehow.
they're gonna self soothe their way.
From fears.
There is no moment in time where we say
I'm done.
Fully realized adult.
Maybe the Buddha is. Maybe
the Dalai Lama is, but I don't know many people.
who are totally free of these things.
Бо те практи огронь у
The practice of becoming
The adult that we want to be.
Mm-hmm.
You wanna know a secret?
Shane, it's fucking glorious.
Hm.
Yeah.
Because every day a little bit better.
Every day.
Just feeling a little bit better.
And I don't pretend that I have it all right. I don't. Far from it.
But
It's like after years and years and years of sitting on the meditation cushion.
Eighteen now.
I'm finally understanding what it means to meditate.
I'm finally internalizing what discernment really looks like.
I'm really happy for you. I think that's what I'm feeling right now.
One thing I would be remiss if we don't talk about'cause I found it super helpful and I'd love for you to explain people.
Uh is O F N R
This is a foundational component of something called
Uh nonviolent communications.
N B C
And that was first um
Promulgated by Marshal Rosenberg.
my interpretation is not a hundred percent in compliance with
traditional N V C training.
But
You're right.
to make the link between OF and R
And what we're doing here. So
OFNR is an acronym.
And the letters stand for four words.
Observation.
Feeling.
Need.
And request.
And
If we want to think about it this we can think about it this way, this is discernment in action.
Mm-hmm. And this is self responsibility in action.
So
Uh to go back to an earlier story.
Observation.
Uh I was putting on my pants and Allie looked at me up and down.
Okay.
That is a value neutral statement.
It is non assumptive.
Right. And a an assumptive
Uh blaming
observation would be
Ali judged me.
When she looked me up and down.
So the first
molecule of this is a simple observation.
Uh
Jerry walked past Allie.
carrying a load of laundry.
Fact.
Feeling.
When
Allie looked Jerry up and down.
It felt
Like she was judging his body.
That
Another feeling.
brings up old feelings of being
Hyper criticized.
Mm-hmm.
Jerry has a need.
To feel safe in his body.
Mm-hmm.
So in the future
Here comes the request.
when you're judging whether or not the jeans fit.
Can you tell me what you're doing?
So I don't have to go through the whole cycle.
You see how that works?
Mm-hmm.
The problem is, Shane, that we confuse O and F
All the time.
You don't care about our relationship, you're always late to our lunches.
That's a feeling.
And it's an interpretation. It's an assumption.
So so being late is the observation, but the all of the subjectivess to that is the feeling.
And what do we react to?
The subjectiveness, the story.
we react to the feeling, the story we're telling ourselves. I often say that the story we tell ourselves is the most powerful story in the world.
Yeah.
And if we by breaking it up into this is why you responded to OFNR.
By breaking it up, we we we
Pull the action.
The stimulus.
Yeah.
Away from the response.
Yeah. And we create more space.
In that sp
In that place.
And the more space we can
create between the stimulus and the response.
The more
uh beneficial our relationships are going to be.
The more we'll interrupt the story that that powerful story that we tell ourselves.
Holy crap, look at what I just did there. I just told myself that you're leaving me.
Even though I know.
You're going down to the laundry room.
And in a way that the framework enables you to take the invisible and make it visible with your partner, with whoever you're talking to, right? You're taking these invisible thoughts in your head. It makes visible the invisible. It makes conscious the unconscious.
So by making that visible
You're allowing the other person
To calibrate.
Your vi the visibility of these no, that's not what I'm doing, right? So you're separating them into sort of like fact interpretation, and then the other person, they would agree with the facts because the facts are not subjective.
But the feeling, which is the subjective part, by making
it visible. You're allowing the other person to be like, No, they're calibrating.
sort of or they're giving you feedback on that feeling.
Which is like you're responsible for your feelings, but they can tell you their intent and their their sort of what they were You're absolutely right. And what do you do for yourself when you do that, when you separate that? Cause you went to what you're doing to the other person and how it it allows them to calibrate. What are you doing for yourself?
Well, you're allowing yourself to distinguish between feeling and observation.
Which then interrupts that story making that we do.
Well, it allows you to
Go from
reacting without reasoning
Which is very animal, which is what we are. We are animals, right? So we do tend to react without reasoning. In certain situations we get triggered, right? Especially when it comes to identity or territory or how we see ourselves or ego.
Or safety.
Uh, and you're you're creating that pause between stimulus and response when you do it, and you're allowing your
Yeah, sort of
uh self to take a
Double.
Double take or step on that. Yeah. I mean I often visualize it as the prefrontal cortex grabs the wheel away from the amygdala.
Mm-hmm. Right? And it's like, oh wait, my adult brain kicks in.
Mm-hmm.
Because I separated
Stimulus and response.
And I can see
How?
The more power I have
maybe the greater responsibility I have to do that.
Right, let's take it up the level.
Imagine a president.
With nuclear power.
Operating on
the merged observation and feeling.
Huh your ship crossed one of our ships. We're gonna go to war. Literally
Wars happen. Yeah.
Yes, yes, they do.
Yeah, unfortunately. Right.
This is this is why this
I I call this a really a tool of discernment.
And and being able to do that radical self inquiry to be able to say what's actually going on for me.

First step to pulling apart.
Observation.
Feeling reaction.
We always end on the same question, which is
I think I've really um
Curious about your answer. We've danced
We've touched on it a little bit throughout the episode, but it's what is success for you?
It's really, really hard.
At this stage in my life.
To disconnect the notion of success.
From equanimity.
Hm if I
You know, what did I do yesterday?
We have two fountains on our property around the house and one kept shorting out.
And I went to home depot and I got
uh a new plug and I found the short in the wire and I
rewired that and I put it all together and the fountain's now working again.
Without tripping.
the the ground fault interrupt.
Why do I tell that story?
Because it was so satisfying.
And I had a conversation with my son Sam.
that was philosophical in nature. He would love this podcast.
And it was so satisfying. And I talked to my sister Anne.
Who's got her own struggles right now.
And it was so satisfying.
And Allie and I watched an episode, the latest episode of Alone season ten.
Alone in Saskatchewan.
And it was so satisfying.
That is a successful life.
It's filled with enough.
It's filled with
Love.
And safety and belonging.
Notice what I did not say.
The material stuff.
Those things are important.
But but they are the container.
Not the content.
Success for me is content.
That makes me feel at the end of the day.
Not bad, dude.
You did a you did a pretty good job.
Beautiful response. Thank you for sharing that.
Thank you for the conversation today. This has been uh one of the most incredible conversations I've ever had on the podcast or not.
Well now you're gonna make me blush.
Thank you for the work that you do, as well as for the invitation to come on the show.
Thanks for listening and learning with us.
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